The field of the invention is straight-chain, primary alcohols.
Alcohols, especially primary, straight-chain alcohols are suitable basic materials for detergents, emulsifiers, lubricating oils etc. Further, primary, straight-chain alcohols may easily be converted, for instance by means of ethylene oxide, into ethoxylates that are easily biodegradable and furthermore, esterifications performed for instance with sulfur trioxide provide better yields than are obtained from branched alcohols.
The state of the art of preparing straight-chain, primary alcohols may be ascertained by reference to U.S. Pat. No. 3,401,206 of Horst-Dieter Wulf and Karl Geifert, which issued Sept. 10, 1968, and the Ullmann's Encyklopaedie der Technischen Chemie, 3rd Edition, Vol. 14 (1963), p. 612, and the Kirk-Othmer "Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology", 2nd Ed., Vol. 1 (1963), pp. 560-569, under the section Alcohols, Higher, Synthetic; Vol. 3 (1964), pp. 775-779 under the section Miscellaneous Bromine Compounds, Vol. 5 (1964), pp. 231-240, under the section Chlorinated Paraffins; and Vol. 8 (1966), pp. 356-361, under the section Ester Interchange, wherein alcoholysis in the presence of an alkaline catalyst is disclosed, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein.
Oxosynthesis is a process for preparing straight-chain, primary alcohols (see Ullmann's Encyklopaedie der Technischen Chemie, 3rd Ed., complementary volume, pp. 87-92). Oxosynthesis is always accompanied by an undesirable by-product in the form of the branched aldehyde, possibly following hydrogenation of the alcohol. The proportion of straight-chain compounds in the reaction mixture in all prior art processes employed so far has been less than 90 percent. Straight-chain, primary alcohols also are prepared by the so-called aluminum foil or Alfol process of K. Ziegler (see Ullmann's Encyklopaedie der Technischen Chemie, 3rd Ed., complementary volume, pp. 92-94, and Kirk-Othmer, ibid, Vol. 1, p. 560). Aluminum alkyls with higher unbranched alkyl groups are obtained, which may be transformed by air oxidation and subsequent hydrolysis of the aluminum alkoxides into a mixture of unbranched and straight-chain alcohols of various chain lengths. The drawback of this latter process is the great variation in length of the chains of the generated alcohols.